On Monday, an official with the Montana Board of Public Education defended the manner in which it conducted a meeting to select a new superintendent for Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind.

The board of public education held a conference call Thursday afternoon to discuss applicants for the superintendent job, despite objections the meeting was being held without input from the public.

Pete Donovan, executive director for the board of public education, said the agenda for the meeting was posted prior to the call. Though no phone number was listed for the conference call, members of the public could have called the office ahead of time to get information on how to access the call or come into their office in Helena to listen to the call via speaker phone.

Mike Meloy, attorney for the Montana Freedom of Information hotline, said open meeting laws in Montana indicate if a public entity is going to conduct a meeting via phone, they have to permit access to either a speaker phone or a dial-in number so the public can observe the deliberations.

In addition to members of the board, Donovan said there were a few staff members from MSDB included on the call and one person who came into the office to listen to the call.

"They had called ahead of time," he said.

The meeting was called to order in public and Donovan said the board then went into executive session to discuss the candidates for the job.

Once they came out of executive session a recommendation was made to hire Donna Sorensen and the public was allowed to comment.

Donovan said the board received one comment from MSDB staff at that time.

Donovan still declined to release the names of the applicants for the position, citing information from the Department of Administration which said he wasn't required to for privacy reasons.